All ah dat is bacchanal

Despite being in the heat of the hectic and sometimes mad Carnival season, life goes on in sports and one cannot drop his/her guard and throw one’s hands in the air and gyrate without care.

But fittingly, some events on the local scene in the last week have fallen into the current season of bacchanal.{{more}}

It seems that some persons involved in sports at the national level have become engrossed in the festivities and are frolicking, forgetting that there is life after the celebrations.

First up, and immediately, this column wants to dismiss as a joke, and a piece of piccong that a Kittitian has been assigned as Coach for our two Track athletes who have been allocated spots to the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

It has to be a case of not hearing right, or it is one of those pranks persons play to inject life into an otherwise dull moment in sports.

If it turns out to be true, then, the bacchanal now start.

Staying in the trend of some practical jokes, was the Executive of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Football Federation attempting to host a prize-giving ceremony last week?

Whilst their thoughts of such a ceremony must be lauded, what they attempted to do on the night of Monday, June 25, at the Peace Memorial Hall, amounted to near nought.

First of all, it was not the first to be held indoors, as was mentioned by First Vice President of the SVGFF Lloyd Small, as the Joseph Delves-led administration staged consecutive ceremonies in 2010 and 2011 at the Methodist Church Hall in Kingstown and at the Golden Apple Building, also in Kingstown, respectively.

It was evident that the persons in charge of the function were simply not prepared to host a function of that nature.

Again, this column continues to clamour for organizations, especially those at the national scale, to engage persons with the acumen to carry out such tasks, rather than grope in the dark, as a mockery is often made of well-meaning occasions.

What was glaring also and most significant, was the oozing of the rumoured discord among personnel.

What is being hidden in the darkness is surely coming to light.

But it was not all bad, as the highlight was the video presentation of an interview with two footballers of yesteryear, in Carlton Horne and Vincent Hadaway, as they reminisced on activities of the past and at the same time, retraced the history of club Football in St Vincent and the Grenadines in the 1950s and 1960s.

Such practices must be encouraged, as we strive to shorten the distance between what happened in the past and what obtains at the present, whilst documenting our Football history.

Other sporting bodies should not necessarily carbon copy what the SVGFF has done, but strive to put in concrete form the history of sports in St Vincent and the Grenadines, which in the main has been archived orally.

More embarrassment was to headline nationally, when a Cricket match, last Saturday at the Arnos Vale Two Playing Field, had to aborted, after one player, a selectee for the national 20/20 training squad, apparently was in a stupor on the field of play.

Indeed, this may be the lowest the sport could get.

Maybe, with the national competition simply meandering, it was time for an injection to pep up things.

Finally, it is unpardonable and effortless on the part of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Netball Association to stage a Closing Ceremony in the absence of a Public Address system.

The happenings at the closing of the tournament epitomise the state of the sport at present.

As this column has advised President Dellarice Duncan, she surely has a mountain to climb.

Already, even the inclines are becoming arduous for her.

Some may say why should anyone be concerned at this time as to what is going wrong with sports in St Vincent and the Grenadines, as it is time to leave your worries behind and have an unbridled rollicking time for the next few days.

But all in all, let us all mindful that sports is 365 days per year and must always be highlighted: the good, the bad and the indifferent.